The International Bar Association (IBA) has released a comprehensive report on the social and economic impact of the legal profession. This report aims to assess the impact of the legal profession on society, explore the relationship between this role and the general public's perception of it, and identify the levers to improve its positive impact.

The assessment in this report is based on four major sources of insight:

• an extensive review of existing studies and impact assessment tools developed by independent or multilateral entities (e.g., ClarityAI, the United Nations);
• a big data analysis that has never before been performed in the context of assessing the profession’s impact, measured according to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
• two global surveys, one including approximately 700 legal professionals and the other including approximately 7,600 members from the general public, on their perception of the profession’s impact;
• interviews with over 50 leading legal experts from different regions, practising law in different ways (e.g., judges, academics) and, in the case of private practitioners, from different areas of practice and across multiple legal systems, including civil and common law.

The results of the assessment are structured into three mutually reinforcing categories of the legal profession’s impact:

• social impact,
• indirect economic impact through the contribution to the Rule of Law, and
• direct economic impact.

The following examples illustrate the interconnection among the three types of impact:

• A citizen reclaiming their right to property expropriated by the state through legal representation creates a social impact (providing security versus the state), indirect economic impact (protecting the property and its future production), and direct economic impact for the lawyers involved.
• A lawyer defending an heir in a succession trial creates social impact (by preserving the will of the deceased), and a direct impact for the defendant if the trial is won (through the protection of their wealth) and the professionals involved (through the legal fees and taxes generated).
• The work of a law firm on an Intellectual Property patent registration creates social impact (by promoting creativity and future innovations), indirect economic impact (through protecting innovation and its economic benefits) and direct impact for the lawyers representing the parties.

Moreover, these effects have a cumulative and long-term nature, as the property recovered supports the citizen in their livelihood, the inheritance passes on to future generations, and the patent protection funds continuous research and development to discover, for example, new medicines that extend human life.

Thus, almost any legal professional activity creates one or more types of social impact, indirect economic impact, and direct economic impact, IBA summarizes.

The report is a joint effort of the IBA and McKinsey & Company.

The full text of the report is available at the provided link.